Re: Phusis, Romans 11:16ff

How about if we tackled the matter quite apart from "nature" and "natural"
terminology? There was little in the first century to correspond with our
dichotomy between the artificial and the natural, which probably underlies
our dissatisfaction with the dichotomy between the morally perverse and the
morally correct.
Maybe KATA FUSIN would be rendered sensibly as "built-in," and PARA FUSIN
could then be "not built-in" or some less cumbersome equivalent. These
terms are more mechanistic or clinical and so lack the moralizing overtones
that we seem to hear when we use "nature/natural/unnatural."
I also find it curious that the theology of original sin and its
concomitant portrait of Nature permeated by human sinfulness is stood on
its head in renditions of Romans. In the latter, Nature is good rather
than polluted, if we accept "nature" in our English translations. This
contradicts much of what Paul writes elsewhere; translators and Greek
students might do better to avoid confusing themselves and their Anglophone
audiences.
--David N. Wigtil. Technology Assessment. U. S. Department of Energy.
Graeca leguntur in omnibus fere gentibus,
Latina suis finibus exiguis sane continentur. (Cicero, "Pro Archia")
(Greek works are read in practically all nations;
Latin works are confined in their rather small territory.)
[ How things can change! ]
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